Latest / Skin Anarchy / Paul Baek, Founder of MATTER OF FACT

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Paul Baek, Founder of MATTER OF FACT · Skin Anarchy

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Level four has arrived.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth of the chapter.
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• 0:07
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• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Across the progress of the platform.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all four.
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  SPEAKER_00: Available now, waited and premature.
• 0:25
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• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hi guys, welcome back to the Skin Care Anarchy.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is Ephat, and wow, do I have a guest for you today?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I am so excited because we get to interview him before everybody else.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really, really excited about this and the technology that he's created.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's, I mean, it's it's mind-blowing.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna rant too much.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I want to introduce you guys to Paul Beck, who's the founder of Matter of Fact Skincare.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the show, Paul.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited you're here.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, I'd say thank you so much for having me.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to speak with you.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's such an honor to host you.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you have such a wonderful and just unique career journey.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I would love for you to take us down that road first and talk about all of your experience in obviously, you know, this area, but I know that you have also been involved in the music industry.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love for to talk about all of it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so I mean, I really grew up around, you know, both science and beauty.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my parents immigrated to the US before I was born so that my mother could pursue her PhD in chemistry.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and my father, you know, had a stall at the local flea market for many years uh before he opened a small beauty supply stream.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I really grew up spending a fair amount of time, you know, both in the lab and and around beauty products.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then I sort of took a circuitous path thereafter.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I guess much like Prodigal Sun, I I couldn't resist coming back to my roots.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: But my parents really emphasized the importance of education, like many parents do.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I ended up going to Harvard where I said psychology.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, while I was still a student in college, I ended up signing a deal with a Korean music agency.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was there in South Korea for five years and had four major releases.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and you know, it's wow, it's uh it was an exciting experience.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it meant a lot to me.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was a time, you know, when I listened to K-pop um as a middle schooler and high schooler in in North Florida, um, it was many, many years before K-pop started to have a large audience beyond uh the borders of South Korea.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it was just a reminder to me that there was a larger world out there beyond the small town that I lived in.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was a wonderful town, but you know, um being able to think about, you know, and see Korean performers, you know, recording and performing music across genres, hip-hop, adult contemporary, R ⁇ B, rock, um, and doing it so unself-consciously.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so there was just a pull, and I, you know, I had to to get there.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I auditioned, I I got a record deal and was there for five years.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, it's a it's a very, you know, sometimes brutally so image conscious industry.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so, of course, in between uh recording and performing music, um uh during you know non-promotional cycles, there's a lot of vocal, dance, act, acting instruction, um, but also being sent to the dermatologist um pretty frequently, sometimes multiple times a week.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um Wow, really?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, you have to be camera ready.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it makes sense, makes sense at all times, and you know, access to healthcare there is um it's it's really great.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so there are a lot of a lot of clinics, yeah.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that, you know, this is like really kind of behind the inspiration for how you came back to beauty.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a would you mind if I ask where in Florida you were?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just moved to New York from Delray Beach, so oh gotcha, yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, lovely.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I completely I love your um your journey because I think, you know, as someone I grew up in America and nobody around me looked like me, you know.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So like I think it's so important that you've made this point because, you know, it it's very important for us as as we're growing up to find some sort of connection to our roots.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I love that you did that through, you know, music.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um I want to I want to move on to the brand.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I want to move on to this amazing discovery and the formula that you've created because wow, I mean, I was reading about it and I know ascorbric acid and vitamin C is it's just a huge conversation in the skincare industry, and everyone wants to know about it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I would love for you to just dive in, talk about the science, all the you know, innovation and good stuff that went behind the creation of this.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean, as you know very, very well, because you're so familiar with the science, you know, there's a limited number of ingredients that have robust track records for improving, you know, the appearance of skin.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh it's usually a very long process.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, science doesn't always move quickly, um, and you have to let the data paint its own picture.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, ascorbic acid, the biologically active form of vitamin C, is you know, one of those ingredients.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the catch-22 is of course that it's a very fragile molecule that's very prone to uh degradation, um, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: It breaks down into erythrose in this you know sort of three-step process, um, and it degrades in a very visible way too.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: So going from you know, white or clear if it's solubilized, if it's dissolved in some sort of uh medium, to you know, turning orange and then and then brown.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and so uh people know that vitamin C works for skin, um, but it's been a real challenge finding uh successful delivery vehicles so that it can exert its positive effects on skin in a shelf-stable uh sort of way that's still pleasant to use.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've been looking at the literature for at that point 10 years, 2008 and 2018, when I founded this company.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: In between I did go to business school and uh was on the venture capital side of things, uh, looking at early how did you make this time, Paul?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, like how an earth, I'm sorry, total tangent, but like you've done so much, and it's just like where did the time come from?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um it it's funny because it it felt arduous and long.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, um, you know, this is over a um, you know, I guess a fairly long period of time, you know, 13, 14, 15 years.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you know, five years in uh Korean music, two years in business school, um, two years in uh venture capital in the early stage startup space.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and so to me, I guess we can't help but try to put together different parts of our experiences and lives, you know.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I just I just saw that you know the landscape in skincare had been changing for quite some time.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Consumers were really curious about and hungry to understand the science of skincare, and it's become increasingly so over time.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then I also just observed that there wasn't a whole lot of new technology that's coming into the market for topical skincare.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, that wasn't always the case.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: We have some wonderful, wonderful tools in clinical skincare, many of it you know developed in the 80s, the 90s, early 2000s, um, by you know, some iconic, you know, titans of industry.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then sort of you know, 2000 mid-2000s, early aughts, um, to and especially after 2008, after the financial crisis, um, things just changed.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the RD started getting outsourced, um, even with you know larger corporations, and you start seeing many products become more similar across the market.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and but ironically, it was at a time when consumers are becoming savbier, really, you know, really wanting to understand their products.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I thought that there was a little bit of a mismatch there, and I thought consumers want to understand, they want to value, and they do value uh true innovation.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought, okay, this is a space that I want to look at.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Vitamin C has sort of overtaken almost all other ingredient categories, and we know that consumers are now shopping, you know, more by ingredients, once upon a time by brand than by skincare concerned, and now increasingly by ingredient.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I thought this is an interesting puzzle to try to solve.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I thought of it in three clear buckets with delivering scorpic gas, delivering vitamin C to skin.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, first and foremost, stability is the issue that you know uh formulators think about a lot.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially with vitamin C.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and so is there gonna be, you know, uh meaningful amount of vitamin C left in the product by the time the consumer purchases it and then starts using it and finishes the bottle.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, oftentimes people complain about um they can see the product really dramatically shift in color um before they finish a bottle.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then the second bucket is of course uh sort of cosmetic elegance, so you know how pleasurable the product is to use, you know, you can find ways to deliver asperbic acids, you know, in a stable way to skin, but oftentimes it may be gritty or sandy because you're not dissolving, you're not solubilizing the vitamin C, and that's how you're foregoing the use of water, which is very destabilizing.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then the third bucket was potency, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: So total concentration.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so thinking about sort of the sweet spot, and we know that you know, 10 to 20 percent concentration is supported by the scientific literature in improving the appearance of discolorations on skin, improving the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles on skin.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also that um anecdotally from consumers, it's the concentration sort of, and especially that 15 to 20 percent range where consumers uh see results quickly enough that they're elated with the results, right?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: It keeps them excited about using the product.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: And looking at those three buckets, you know, all of the options on the market I felt that existing technologies ask consumers to make at least one sacrifice, you know, choose two out of three.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought there must be a way to be able to check off all of all of those, you know, boxes to fill all of those buckets.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so um that's sort of where I started.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, you know, then is there a way that you can use waterless solvent systems, you know, um substances other than water to dissolve uh meaningful amounts of ascorpic acid of vitamin C, ideally in that 15 to 20 percent range.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I just developed a framework and I was bootstrapping the company at the time.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I had some wonderful people who uh were willing to have conversations with me, but I didn't have the capital to work with them.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so instead uh I got some lab space in East LA, you know, for a few hundred dollars a month, um, bench space, access to some equipment.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: I had to purchase some of my own equipment and over at Stir homogenizer, um, some you know magnetic stirs with hot plates, etc., um, and uh incorporate the company so that I had access to raw materials, um, raw material samples to work with.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then within actually, you know, the first few months, um we had our first breakthrough.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that's the technology that will be in this, you know, vitamin C serum.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that is one of two products that we're launching with.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that is so cool, Paul.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you were like, you know what, I just went to a lab and I did it by myself and I did it like first.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is the kind of spirit, and this is why I created this podcast is this idea of put science first, you know, and just do it and figure it out.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and this is so phenomenal to me.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And do you mind me asking, like, what was this the first discovery?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: What was the first big breakthrough that you saw?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I was looking at, you know, all of the obvious things that very, very smart accomplished cosmetic chemists and formulators have thought of, you know, when you think of solvents like water, for example, you're thinking of something that's liquid at room temperature that can dissolve something that's solid at room temperature, such as vitamin C, such as ascorbic acid.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um for me, you know, I was pretty sure that all combinations of, you know, sort of the kinds of solvents that we would use in care that we know are safe on skin, probably had been used in all manner of, you know, different permutations and combinations.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I thought, well, a solvent system, you know, in totality, as long as in totality it's liquid at room temperature, then not all of the components in it have to be liquid separately, you know, individually at room temperature, as long as in totality they are.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not an immediately intuitive way of thinking.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if you um, I know that you sometimes use cooking analogies um on your show.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you're thinking about, you know, creating uh a brine, you know, for for a turkey, for example, and you're wanting to put some sugar and you're wanting to put some salt in it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so logic would dictate the more sugar you put into that water, the less capacity it will have to dissolve any additional salt that you put into it, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: But chemically speaking, there may be crystalline substances that you put into a liquid, you know, solvent such as water, that increases its capacity to dissolve certain other uh ingredients such as vitamin C.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was sort of the eureka moment um and uh how the first technology and then quickly sort of our growing portfolio of IP started, you know, growing uh as I that that sort of first eureka moment and then a domino effect.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so that's that was sort of the logic behind how I approached solving the puzzle.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I really love that analogy too.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a very important uh point when it comes to chemistry is that understanding that you know we are not dealing with things that are just you know A, B, and C, you add it together, and then no, it's like you know, you you put things into solutions, they have ionization, and then you know, that changes depending on what's in there.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like you said, that will increase or decrease the likelihood of dissolving something else that you add on.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I I really, really love this.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, the fact that you you were able to think outside of the box like this, I think that's the exact kind of thinking we need in this industry because I'm not gonna lie, you know, I had like a day of ranting the other day where I was just like, I don't know where clinicians got the idea that Botox is the way to go for everything, you know, like we're just like going on a rant, seriously.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was like, you know, and that's where I was like saying I'm like, this is where skincare really fits in.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're taught you want to be non-invasive, right?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: That in medical school, they teach us every day non-invasive everything.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And here we are in an industry that gets criticized for not promoting Botox enough and or something like that, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like this is the exact thing, what you're saying, and you're explaining that I was trying to get out there.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So wow, I mean, I'm I'm very, very impressed, and this is so exciting.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um, obviously, you know, people were gonna jump on this.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, what you know, did you have to explain a lot to the people that were backing you, or did they kind of just understand like this is huge?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, there was a lot of explanation needed.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, beauty is uh a space where, you know, um I think a lot of people assume that there isn't very much science going on.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, sometimes that is the case, right?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Not every brand is going to optimize for efficacy, and nor should every brand, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's room for all kinds of brands in the market for all kinds of consumers, but when you're you're making claims about um improving the appearance of skin, ideally, right, you you want to have uh at least some clinical data that's pointing to the claims being substantiated.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and I, you know, being very nerdy, I I love allowing the data to paint a picture.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, you know, talking to folks, it was well, why why vitamin C?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you optimizing a delivery system for vitamin C?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Why wouldn't you look at, you know, trying to discover the next ingredient and so on and so forth?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought there are companies and their founders that will be passionate and wonderful at doing that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: But for me, my preference is for in working with ingredients that have robust track records in the scientific literature.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, many of those molecules are finicky to work with.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Many of those substances are difficult to solubilize, to dissolve, or to um to stable, you know, stabilize, right?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: In in some sort of cosmetically elegant way.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're trying to balance many, many different factors at once.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought there's still room to improve on ingredients that we know we know what they can do if we allow them to do what they're capable of.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you know, educating, you know, some of our investors about um, because they would say, well, you know, I use a vitamin C product and you know, it claims to be stable, X, Y, and Z, and you know, the product would be a wonderful product, but it would be a vitamin C derivative, which um strictly speaking is is not vitamin.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the same thing.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not, and that's not how our body utilizes it either, which is an excellent point that you made.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and also, you know, I just want to say, you know, from my own understanding, is that vitamin C has so many untapped potential, like so much untapped potential in normal human physiology, you know, like and when it comes to the antioxidant effects, when it comes to, you know, obviously we know it's involved in collagen synthesis, we know that it's involved in, you know, like if you don't have enough vitamin C, you get scurvy.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of thing.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, we know there's a lot of potential here, but to be able to create a delivery system where um your body can utilize it more efficiently, and you know, we don't know what benefits it'll lead to.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that the the real spirit of this needs to be understood, that it's more than just topical skincare sometimes.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's more it's by understanding these different mechanisms that we can then move on to next steps and find, you know what I mean?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like what what's next after vitamin C.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that ingredient, like you said, like we can't make data happen unless we see what the next step is by making the first step, perfecting the first step.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's what you're doing here is really perfecting this.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and so we can go on and figure out, hey, you know, what's the next step with vitamin C.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I love it.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is so, so phenomenal.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I want to move on.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to actually uh shift the focus a little bit, like in terms of like, you know, creating a skincare line.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know we don't see a lot of men representing um, you know, skincare in this space, and it really always disheartens me.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I really want to get your take on that, like the idea of really making you know the male consumer more um, you know, just vigilant and I guess more open to the idea of this is health that we're talking about, you know, we're not talking about makeup and we're not talking about like aesthetics, it's really about health.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So any advice you have, anything that's been in your mind about that um whole topic?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, skin is skin.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, uh on average, you may see, you know, some differences in um biological males and biological females, you know, in average amounts of you know, oiliness, for example, but there's an incredible, incredible amount of overlap.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that sort of data on average doesn't tell you much about your own experiment of n equals one.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: People are just trying to find uh products and routines that are going to work for their skin and their skin concerns.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: And in that sense, you know, skincare, I don't think needs to be particularly gendered.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when we're talking about skin health and best practices, those are things that everyone can benefit from.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: So protecting skin from sun exposure, for example, I don't think is something that you know is going to differ.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: That the benefit is not going to differ between um men and women or males and females, or right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't exactly yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that it doesn't quite matter, but I do think that it can be intimidating for uh some men to um if they don't know where to start and they don't know where to look for advice.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's changed a lot over the past, you know, uh 10-15 years or so.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: And with you know, large online communities discussing uh uh skincare and especially the science of skincare, I think sometimes approaching it in a sort of more quote unquote scientific way is one way in which some men feel more comfortable um approaching skincare.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, I'm not making just a frivolous you know decision.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: I did my research, and you see that a lot in some other industries.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: So when we think about other industries where there's an overlap between health and appearance, well, fitness is a perfect example of that.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, a lot of people are exercising, um, you know, uh doing resistance training in order to improve or change their physical appearance, um, but it makes them feel more comfortable or I guess less less uncomfortable about it by uh saying it in terms of well, how many reps per workout, how many reps per set, how many sets per week?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: What does the science say about maximizing hypertrophy, which is the term that you know they use to signify muscle growth, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it sounds very quantitative and very scientific.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, skincare can be approached in the same kind of way.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for many people, regardless of gender, actually, they are approaching it in a more scientific way.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's that's led more people to you know more men to feel comfortable with skincare.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um And then this line, of course, is for anyone interested in improving their skin health and uh skin concerns.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I hope that you know um you know more men are are uh comfortable with purchasing skincare and taking care of their skin health.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you really you know kind of clarified that the whole science aspect because I completely agree with you.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, the more um, I guess fact-based we can make something, the easier it is to get on board.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I completely agree.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, one of my biggest uh questions it with skincare that I often get is um the whole idea of figuring out what comes first, how to layer your skincare, um, you know, how do products really kind of combine together?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um what was you know, did you keep this in mind when you were creating this uh this technology and this um you know, in this whole scenario of like what when would you want the consumer to put on the product that you've created with the vitamin C in it?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, as would that be the first step, or would that be like, you know, how would that work?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is something that I think a lot of um, you know, uh I call them skin intellectual consumers, um, think a lot about.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: There haven't been a lot of you know good empirical studies on, you know, the effects of applying products in different orders.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the the very few that I've seen seem to demonstrate that it doesn't actually end up making that big of a difference.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, they didn't test every single combination for mutations, so it's just one data point, you know.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: So yes with a grain of salt.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: But for us, you know, releasing two products, you know, a serum and a cream.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the cream is uh, you know, uh, I'd say it's bouncy, but it's not a heavy sort of texture, right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: It took probably actually more iterations of the cream than the serum to get right because of the sensorial aspects of the product and just having to have so many um prototypes before it was it was right.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I've noticed talking to a lot of our panel testers that um folks who are, I guess you what you might call more advanced users of um uh harder hitting treatments, yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um who are used to sort of you know a tingle or uh a bit of a warming sensation, so on and so forth, like to use the serum on a freshly washed, still slightly damp face.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't need very much product, you can apply it sparingly and using the vitamin C serum immediately because the sensation that they get from the product it makes them feel like it's more effective.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, however, in one of the clinical studies, we did a regimen, 12-week regimen study with both products together.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we designed it and asked subjects to apply the cream first and then to apply the serum on top.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I think that's a uh sensorially speaking, a gentler approach.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: People perceive it to be gentler on skin.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we had statistically significant improvements and you know almost all the measures of photoaging that we we measured in both clinician grading and by instrumentation.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then of course, some some very nice before and afters as well that you know we're sharing with uh consumers, of course.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and so that was an indication to me that the gentle approach, the gentle feeling approach, um, doesn't come at the cost of efficacy.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I'd say, you know, you do you, you can use it in either order.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and most people will probably end up having a preference for one or the other, depending on how sensitive they perceive their skin to be.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I actually want to ask you, what made you uh want to come out with two products at once rather than just like a serum?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what most people do with vitamin C.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just I'm just asking because you always see vitamin C in a serum, you know.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I was working concurrently um in the lab on so many products, and you know, my spreadsheet probably there's an entire graveyard of products that um I developed and then thought, I'm not sure.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Either let me put a pause on that.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: It either didn't perform as I wanted it to, or it performed wonderfully, but I didn't think that it was something that the market needed, um, that it was doing something particularly better than what was on the market.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: But these two products I felt that um they performed wonderfully together.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, in our process of you know, clinical studies, collecting clinical data, we made sure to see if that was the case as well.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: So testing in a double-blinded, negative controlled, randomized uh study, the vitamin C by itself, and then doing a hydration study on the cream by itself, and then doing a regimen study with the two products in tandem to see if there was potentially some sort of synergistic effect.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that is in fact what we saw.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so uh letting again the data paint the picture and compelling us to release the two products together because they seem to perform better together.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really oh, that's really interesting that there was a synergistic effect.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's really, really uh very interesting to me because I think we need more data like that in general in the skincare space because you know, people, like I said, love talking about layering and they love talking about the use of multiple products, but nobody wants to study, you know, like a routine.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that it's very cool that you've done that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really, you know, for me, I think the biggest question always comes up is like, what is this new product going to do in terms of scientific advancement for this specific area?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I'm very curious to see how people, um, not just consumers, but scientists respond to this amazing uh work that you've done.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, for me, I'm automatically intrigued and it makes me want to go into a lab and you know see all the different ways that we can utilize it in more ways, you know, not just like just topical application, but especially with things like hyperpigmentation, which is a massive problem.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, um, I know I'm a woman of color, so I have that problem.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a huge skin concern of mine.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm very, very interested to see how this would uh play out in different scenarios, um, you know, and get the feedback of dermatologists.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm excited, is what I'm trying to say.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to uh to see the response you get after the land.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's it's so important to collect data.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and one thing that you brought up was right, as a as a person of color, um, right, hyperpigmentation, photo aging manifests first as discolorations on skin for you know Fitzpatrick types probably three through six, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so for more than half of the world's population, um hyperpigmentation surfaces, you know, before wrinkling.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, currently a lot of the gold standard skin lightning or skin brightening technologies and uh ingredients that we have on the market, such as hydroquinone, have been really extensively studied in fair skin types, you know, uh phototypes, you know, one through two, one through three.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and we know from the literature that there's a higher incidence of um off-target effects, so side effects, unintended consequences that we don't want in as as uh you as skin becomes uh darker and darker and darker, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, rebound pigmentation, ochronosis, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: This bluish-grayish uh tinge of uh rebound pigmentation um that's more likely to occur in you know phototypes, uh especially four through six, but also three through six.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so you see that in the literature, and you see all of the literature also on alternative ingredients that um can also improve the appearance of discolorations on skin, such as vitamins, such as sporpic acid, but also things like azoleic acid and you know, so on and so forth, and they have sometimes multiple mechanisms by which they lighten pigmentation and um and and different uh from each other as well.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you when you look at that in aggregate, you you think, well, it's unfortunate that those most in need of new options, new better options for lightning discolorations, are quite limited in what they're able to use and what's available to them.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: That was another reason why I was excited to work with this Corpages, because if you could again sort of unleash the potential it has that we know it has from the scientific literature by uh overcoming sort of this some of the stability, you know, and uh uh cosmetic elegance issues uh with formulating with it, then we can give better options to more people who really need it.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that you brought up accessibility because that was really a point I wanted to ask you about, especially when it comes to like global markets, right?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously you've seen the Korean market for skincare, and I I'm not very uh well-versed in in the differences, but like what were some of the concerns that you had, or did you have any concerns with you know um where to launch first or how to distribute it so that the most people had the most access to your product?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I mean, at the beginning, it was, you know, when the domino started falling with all of the technologies, um I did have a moment of, well, what do I want to do with them?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and as more people in the industry heard what I was doing, and you know, um, I had some wonderful mentors and advisors, you know, they asked me as well, well, do you want to make the technology available to other brands?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to build your own brand?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and after talking with enough folks, I thought, well, I'd love to be able to tell the story of the technologies and educate folks because the spirit of innovation in skincare was very strong in the 80s, 90s, and early odds, right?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we've been there before.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's out of the question that we can get there again.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so if if you know, if I can show that by building a brand and I don't know, I I think maybe tackling some of the cynicism in the industry, you know, uh what do these innovations or technology matter?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's all positioning and X, Y, and Z and you know, um, following trends and thinking, you know, there's always going to be room for that, but don't you think that there could be room for some serious RD and innovation as well?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so thinking probably the best way to communicate that to both all of the skincare users in the world and um folks in the industry is to is to build a brand and sell the sell the products directly to consumers at first, and then um perhaps later down the road, you know, partnering with um, you know, brick and mortar uh retailers or um, but you know, we're taking it one step at a time.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, and you know, I want to say when you want something done, you've got to do it yourself, Paul.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, like I am so glad you came out with a brand yourself.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You, I mean, it I know I'm not saying anything about anyone that already is already in the market, you know, don't get me wrong for everyone listening, but what I'm saying is that I think when you discover something or when especially when it comes to science, most of the time the person who's seen the you know nitty-gritty benchwork is the one that can really uh put it out there in the best way.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that you have gone in this direction.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just so excited.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited about the line.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited about the science-backed approach and the strong clinical data that you have supporting your your launch.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I wish you nothing but amazing success because it that's what your line deserves.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I uh wonderful stuff.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, thank you so much.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Such, you know, it's such warm words and very meaningful coming from you.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I would love to have you back anytime your schedule allows.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're very busy, but everyone listening, I hope you've learned a lot from Paul.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know I have, and I cannot wait for this launch, which will be September 28th.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys better go buy the products because I I can't wait.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm super excited.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So um, thank you so much, Paul, and I will be back next time, guys, with another episode.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, so I hope you love that episode.
• 34:10
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• 34:15
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• 34:58
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• 35:10
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• 35:15
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